177-10002-10012 | 2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992
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AGENCY: LBJ
RECORD NUMBER: — 177-10002-10012
RECORD SERIES: NSF, UNARRANGED FILES, LA/CUBAN SUBVERSION, BOX 5
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DATE: 02/18/1963
PAGES: 7
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DOCUMENT TYPE: DRAFT BRIEFING NOTES
CLASSIFICATION : — Unclassified
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DRAFT BRIEFING NOTES 18 February 1963
‘CUBAN SUBVERSION IN LATIN AMERICA

I, Introductory Statement

The public pronouncements of Cuban leaders, the

daily record of events in Latin America, and reports

from our intelligence sources within Communist and

other left-extremist elements throughout this hemis-
phere all agree on one salient conclusion: that

Fidel Castro is encouraging and supporting. the efforts

of Communists to overthrow and seize control of the

governments in Latin America.

A. Analysis indicates that the immediate threat
stems less from the subversive efforts of tra-
ditional Communist movements than from Cuban
support of any and all active revolutionary and
terrorist movements.

B. These distinctions are not precise. In some
countries, Castro's original success has spurred
the established Communist movement to action,
and he supports it. In others, the old-time
Communists may even oppose radical action at: this
time, and Castro works with more ‘active and more

militant revolutionists.

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C. In any event, we know of only two coun-
tries--Mexico and Uruguay=-where Castro
appears inclined for the time being to
forego inciting violence, and this only
because he wants a favorable climate for
his operations into other countries,

II, Even before the October missile crisis-—~and
with increasing rancor since then--Cuban leaders
' have been exhorting revolutionary movements to
violence and terrorism, and supporting their
activities. |

A. Cuban support takes many different forms.
We have occasional evidence of direct
participation by Cuban nationals, as in
the La Oroya disorders in Peru in December.
We know that some funds move, generally in

cash by courier, from Cuba to the revolu-
tionaries in other countries. While we have

_ not been able to come up with the kind of
“airtight proof a court would require that
weapons move directly from Cuba to these.
same groups, we do know that Cuba furnishes
money to buy weapons, and that some guer-
rilla forces in Peru, for instance, are
equipped with Czech weapons which most

logically would come from Cuba,
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But by and large, our evidence shows that

Cuba is not now attempting a large program

‘of physical support for Latin American rev—

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olutionaries. — It is, rather, concentrating
on supplying the inspiration, the guidance,
the training, and the communications and
technical assistance they require.

In essence, Castro tells would-be revolu~
tionaries from other Latin American coun-
tries: "Come to Cuba; we will pay your

way, we will train you in underground or-
ganization techniques, in guerrilla warfare,
in sabotage and in terrorism. We will see
to it that you get back to your homeland,
Once you are there, we will keep in touch —
with you, give you propaganda support, send
you. propaganda materials for your -movement,
training aids to expand your guerrilla forces,
secret communications methods, , and perhaps
funds and specialized demolition equipment."
Castro is not, as far as we know, promising
these other Latin Americans any Cuban weapons
or Cuban personnel--either leaders, ad-
visers, or cadres. But he probably does

tell them: “If you succeed in establishing

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something effective by way of a revolu-
tionary movement in your homeland, if your
guerrillas come down out of the hills _
and confront regular armed forces, then we
may consider more concrete forms of assist-
ance,‘

D. So far, it should be noted, none of the
movements in South America has reached this
final stage--and in fact even Castro's
Sierra Maestra guerrillas never had to fight
a pitched battle with regular military
formations which might have required more .

. advanced weapons than small arms, grenades,
mines, and machineguns. In many ‘ways, Cuba
under Castro is the Latin version of the old
Comintern, inciting, abetting, and sustain-

"ing revolution wherever it will flourish,

III, Before going into more detailed evidence of Cuban

’ subversion in Latin America, I should note that

Venezuela is apparently number one on Cuba's

priority list for revolution.

A. Fidel Castro said so to the recent meeting
of Communist front organizations for Latin
American women.

1. Che Guevara and Blas Roca both empha-
sized the outlook for revolution.in

Venezuela in speeches in January.
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2. One of our established sources of proven
reliability, high in the ranks of the
Venezuelan Communist Party ({a veteran

party member and leader of the FALN)),
says the Central Committee agreed in Jan-
uary that a "peaceful solution to the.
present situation in Venezuela is out of
' the question,"

B, This same source reported that Communist guer-—
rilla and terrorist operations in Venezuela
were placed under a unified command in late
1962, which coordinates activities with the
other militant extremist group in Venezuela,
the MIR. The result has been the creation of
the FALN, , or Armed Forces of National Liberation,
Ll. The FALN is currently trying to publicize

its existence by' such acts as the hijack-
ing of the freighter ANZOATEGUI, and by
acts of sabotage and indiscriminate shoot-
ings. These have also been designed to
dissuade President Betancourt from his trip
to Washington.

2. I do not wish to minimize the violence in

Venezuela. The sabotage is the work of

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experts, and is being done with advanced
types of explosives. The shooting has
reached the point in Caracas where it is
not safe to go out ‘after ten at night in
some sections of the capital. . But it is
the opinion of both our people and the em~
bassy that this is not a threat to govern-
ment control. It is one thing for a group
of young men to race down a dark street
firing a machinegun from a speeding car,
It is quite a different matter to stand

up to the armed forces, or seize and hold
government buildings.

3. We believe that Cuba has given guerrilla
training to more nationals from Venezuela
than from any other country. I shall ex~
plain in more detail later how we arrive
at our figures on guerrilla trainees. ‘Our -
best estimate now is that more than 200

_ Venezuelans received such training in 1962.
a. Many of these are engaged in terror-
ism in the cities, and others were
rounded up and given long prison

sentences when they committed themselves

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prematurely last spring ina country-
side where the rural population strongly
Supports the Betancourt administration,
One of our best penetrations of the Com-

munist Party in Venezuela tells us that

at present the unified command has less

than 150 guerrillas in’ the field, in

widely separated groups of 15 to 25 men

each.

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